The invention relates generally to rotary cutters and, more particularly, relates to ring cutters for machining gears, couplings and the like.
Ring cutters having a plurality of cutting elements mounted on the periphery of the ring cutter have been known for many years in the art of milling. The existing ring cutter design includes an adapter plate, which is mounted onto a spindle and a cutter ring, which is secured to the adapter plate. The customer still finds it difficult to mount the cutter ring onto the adapter plate because of close tolerances between the cutter ring and the adapter plate. Even a slight tilt in the axis due to the weight of the cutter ring will make the mounting of the cutter ring onto the adapter plate very difficult.
However, mounting a cutter ring on a spindle or mounting a cutter ring on a cutter head requires a precise fit of the cutter ring base and side mounting surfaces to the mounting surfaces of the spindle or head. If a cutter ring is not precisely mounted to a cutter head or machine spindle, the cutter ring will not rotate true about the axis of rotation of the machine spindle. The non-true rotation, known as run-out, can occur radially and/or axially with respect to the axis of rotation of the cutter head and machine spindle. A cutter ring rotating in this manner will result in imprecisely formed tooth geometry on a workpiece, such as a gear or gear blank.